1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a processing method for performing a print control according to the type of paper.
2. Description of the Related Art
The business flow of conventional print industries includes fundamental phases of receiving an order from a customer (or a client), producing print products (e.g., magazines, newspapers, catalogs, advertisement prints, gravures, etc) according to the order, and delivering the finished products to the customer (or client). Many of conventional printing companies are still using large-scale printing apparatuses, such as offset-type printing machines. The printing work according to a conventional printing method includes various processes, such as document reception, design, layout, comprehensive layout (presentation based on a printer output), correction (layout correction or color correction), proof (proof print), block copy preparation, post-processing treatment, and delivery.
The offset type printing machine requires, as a mandatory step, preparation of a block copy. When a block copy is once finished, modifying or correcting the block copy is not easy. Complicated correction, if performed at later timing, increases the total manufacturing cost. Accordingly, the printing work according to the conventional printing method typically requires careful inspections and/or corrections, including examination of the layout and confirmation of colors. In this manner, the conventional printing method requires a large scale device and a sufficient lead time to finish the print works as requested by a customer or client. Furthermore, the conventional printing method requires specialized knowledge or know-how of carrying out various printing operations.
On the other hand, electro-photographic printing apparatuses and inkjet printing apparatuses can provide high speed and high quality outputs. To develop a new market of electronic data-based digital printing, a new business model, so called “Print on Demand (referred to POD),” has been recently introduced as having the capability of processing a relatively smaller lot of job and finishing the job in a short period of time without using a large-scale device or system, for example, by fully utilizing a digital image forming apparatus, such as a digital copy machine or a digital multifunction peripheral.
In such a POD market, computer-based controls and managements are essentially required to promote the digitization in various printing processes, increase the quality level of print products, and catch up with the conventional print industries. For example, the POD market includes Print For Pay (PFP) as print service suitable for a copy/print shop or a print company and Centralized Reproduction Department (CRD) as print service suitable for an in-house section of a company.
In the POD market, clients are allowed to select an arbitrary paper (i.e., printing medium) from various types of papers. Therefore, a digital multifunction peripheral used in the present POD market is configured to perform print processing using a wide variety of papers, such as standard papers (i.e., papers generally used), user-defined papers (i.e., papers having settings (shape/grammage/surfaceness) determined by a user), and preset papers (i.e., papers prepared beforehand by a manufacturer or sales company).
Furthermore, a user can access, via an operation unit of a digital multifunction peripheral or a remote client PC, a paper information database that manages all types of papers. Furthermore, a user is allowed to perform various operations including new registration or deletion/correction of the database information and acquisition of registered paper information from the database.
The digital multifunction peripheral for the POD market, when performing print processing using various papers, may restrict printing functions according to a paper type designated by print data.
For example, as discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-169684, if a print job includes designation of two-sided printing, a printing system determines whether a designated paper is suitable for the two-sided printing, and if the designated paper is not suitable for the two-sided printing, the printing system requests a user to cancel the print job or change the two-sided printing to one-sided printing.
However, according to the above-described Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-169684, a process of identifying a paper type designated by the print job is required to prevent any print error.
The standard paper has a regulated paper ID. Therefore, a printing system can identify the paper type based on the paper ID designated by a print job. However, a paper ID set for a user-defined paper and a paper ID set for a preset paper are arbitrary. If the printing system does not store any information relating to the user-defined paper or the preset paper, the printing system cannot identify a paper type based on the paper ID designated by a print job.
As a result, if the designated paper type cannot be determined, the printing system will be unable to generate print control information suitable for a paper type designated by a print job and unable to obtain a print result that a user intends.